A primary school has been warned by an education watchdog to ‘strengthen leadership and management’ as their ‘rate of improvement is too slow’.

Townley Primary School, in Christchurch, was ranked as requiring improvement by Ofsted following their inspection in March this year.

It comes as inspectors found that attendance was too low, aspirations of some pupils were not high enough and governors have not ‘routinely monitored’ the impact of leaders’ work.

The school, in Crown Drove, was rated as requiring improvement in four areas of inspection including quality of teaching, personal development and outcomes for pupils.

The Ofsted report states: “The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. The attitude of pupils towards their learning is variable.

“While their conduct is good, they sometimes do not expect to work productively enough, resulting in limited progress.

“The quality of teaching, learning and assessment varies too much across the school, and sometimes within the same lesson. Consequently, the progress pupils make over time is too slow.

“The work of pupils in current year groups across key stages 1 and 2 shows that not enough pupils are making the rapid progress they need to catch up with other pupils nationally, and too many are still working below expected standards in English and Mathematics.

“Consequently, too many pupils, especially older pupils, are not yet well prepared for the next stage of their education.”

However, inspectors praised the schools Early Years provision as being good, saying that leaders were ‘highly committed’.

The report added: “The behaviour of children is good. Staff make sure children are well-cared-for and are kept safe.

“Leaders are highly committed to working closely with parents, and value their contributions.

“Leaders and staff have high expectations of what each child can achieve. They precisely assess children’s needs and then plan exciting activities which will help them to make good progress.”

The school has 122 pupils on its roll between the ages of 2 to 11.

The inspector, Judith Sumner, held meetings with the headteacher, middle leaders, school office staff, a trainee teacher and pupils.

She also met with governors and had a discussion with a local authority representative.